SCARSICK

Scarsick is a mediocre effort by Pain of Salvation, comparatively to their last album, Be. It is like Daniel Gildenlöw has lead his band into a sort of System-of-a-Down-like band, with heavy riffs along with rap singing, mixed with mellower parts. It does not bring much, if anything, of new or refreshing to the music panorama, sometimes taking their intents to exhaustion. Even taking in consideration the nice message of the album, or its lyrics, it is of little value opposing to the lack of originality or the sparse moments of sensibility of the album.

The compositions are made around a heavy riff, like in the tittle track, or built around a pop theme, like "Spitfall" or "Cribcaged". In "Dance Queen" it is like we're listening to George Michael or even David Hasselhoff at their best (!), incredible how they let this track stay on the album. "America" shows an interinting mixing of an 70-80's-like chorus with modern guitar work, though with bit out-of-date arrangements. This track, along with the simple but beautiful "Kingdom of loss" and the misterious "Ideocracy" are the best work of the album, insufficient though to be considered step forwards to the band.

Many have judged the pretensious side of Pain of Salvation with Be. Well, taking out the pretension, here you have the result.